[DreadBringer]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kamen Rider Die

KAMEN RIDER W EPISODE 36 - “BEYOND R - LEAVE ALL BEHIND”

Let’s talk about Terui first, since this is his Upgrade Form story. Like I mentioned last time, I’m good with them landing this story on Terui’s protective feelings for Nagi outweighing his hatred for Isaka. While Shroud’s here to yet again get it wrong, I don’t feel like this story ever really tried to say that Terui’s motivation was anything other than saving that girl from Isaka. There’s no conflict in Terui, which makes his attempts to tame the Trial Memory come off less like a spiritual awakening and more like a fairly standard training montage. (And, look, I’m just saying: a guy who turns into a motorcycle should’ve been able to run that track on his own power.) It’s nice to see him succeed, and his victory over Isaka is pretty glorious, but this all felt like a semi-perfunctory Time To Close The Book On Isaka story, not anything that required a reexamination of Terui’s psychology. Not exactly the same as Shotaro having to reckon with the power of his weakness, you know?

The evil Isaka is unable to comprehend the concept of goodness, where Terui is strong due to his desire to protect instead of hatred. Isaka's death of Living Connectors going out of control and devouring him is rather scary for children's show, but even Shotaro, who spares criminals, would feel that it's fitting for him. Previously, Shroud too, to think Terui has to fill himself with revenge and hatred each time to succeed. And Shroud practically ditches Terui as he's no longer as revenge-driven as before, showing that she's ruthless and see others merely as a tool for her own ends, fitting her preference of cold detached traits; ignoring an obvious proof that even if he didn't pass, doesn't change the fact that Terui drastically improved in his lap time here, compared to the previous ones' 12-13s. Progress is still important to take into account too instead of just results alone. Overall, I think it's more about the villains' view on Terui's change rather than Terui's own stuff, and I find many people being like Shroud or Isaka, viewing virtue as weakness and glorifying destructive traits.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kamen Rider Die

And then there’s Saeko choosing Isaka over her family, and it’s… shot well? I liked how it all looked, and I like the escalation of tension within the villain group just as the heroes are becoming more powerful, and I like the idea that Isaka is – like Terui – finding a motivation beyond where he started from, but I kind of don’t care a whole lot. Saeko’s scenes with Isaka have always been too one-note for me (and that note is There Are Kids Watching), and I don’t know that she’s ever been portrayed with enough nuance to care about whether she feels like she gets enough respect from her crime-boss father. Isaka, meanwhile, is clearly just counting the 9.8 scenes until he’s offed, so his threats against Ryubei are a nice nod to an overall goal that is basically never ever going to happen. So much of the middle part of this episode feels like it’s killing time until Terui is allowed to leave the track, even if it’s the best version of killing time that I can think of.

When Isaka openly declares that he'll defeat Ryubee, as Ryubee was holding the shaving razor, I was kinda terrified for the next scene here as it can potentially have Ryubee using the razor to mutilate Isaka or something (albeit my airing will probably censor). But I guess human butchering is more scary to show to children than detonating monsters (and W had the Dopants not killed most of the time), so Ryubee just throws it away and doubts Isaka accomplishing that, turning into Terror Dopant instead to melt him. For below, I got things to say about Wakana.

Wakana finally speaks up against Saeko to express her feelings about Isaka that he's only using her, and reminds her about their family business as well as the love provided by her father, but Saeko would also confess that Ryubee never loved her unlike Wakana, and used her as untrustworthy slave, with an evil laugh. She then offers a choice if Wakana is with her or against her. Wakana views Saeko as acting strange and thus is deaf to reason.... like she's always been like this? Like her speaking up here, I'll also do it; honestly, I think since her setup in ep. 13-14, Wakana was kind of just there, mostly rolling along with what Museum does with occassional questioning, with ep. 23-24 as an exception (the other one had her experimented by Isaka). Her refusal to use Claydoll Dopant seems to instead relegate her into more minor roles, the character development she got was mostly used to tolerate Saeko more (her disdain is fully aimed at Isaka here).

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kamen Rider Die

It sounds like I hated this episode, but I really didn’t. It’s fine. The debut of Accel Trial is super cool, and this whole story is a gigantic win for the most appealing version of Terui. It just – it never felt like it had any fun twists on it, and so much of the Sonozaki side of things featured the inner lives of characters I was never terribly curious about. It’s a solid episode, but something this important to the character of Accel should’ve probably managed better than “solid”.

A (formerly) revenge driven red secondary Rider dishing out a beatdown against a mad scientist named Isaka who was responsible behind the death of said Rider's loved ones.... where did I heard that before? For the end part, Nagi was able to smile again (and this even extends to Terui) as she explains birds again to kids, of which they thank Shotaro, but now Shotaro admits that Terui is the MVP this time as he directs the kids to him. This is the opposite for the ending of ep. 28 where Shotaro was dismissed in favor of Terui by Lily, now Shotaro directly announces Terui instead. Terui again almost utters his catchphrase of his question refusal... but he's shown to be softer against kids similar to secondary Riders before him as his softer trait (like the kid he helped from Nagi at the beginning), thus he pauses to instead tell them to not ask so many questions at once.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kamen Rider Die

DIE-A MEMORIES

-Accel Trial!

-Not many Upgrade Forms are actually slimmer than the Base Form (not counting, uh, all of Kabuto and Ex-Aid?), but I really like it here. It sells Speed in such a simple way, which is very fun. The blue is also an easy flip from Accel’s red. Just a couple clean decisions that result in an attractive suit.

-I love that there’s a yellow mid-form change that doesn’t actually do anything… yet.

It's traffic light reference (before TaToBa!), it went from red to yellow first, turning him into Accel Booster, yellow version of his base form. He turns into the actual Trial Form shortly after, as the Trial Memory's light turns go. Funnily, it's (CMIIW) blatantly inaccurate that the traffic light on Trial Memory represents the color blue as 'go' instead of green, and thus Accel Trial is colored blue as well. And the slimmer design, indeed it's a drawback, he's a fragile speedster; his brute power is low with his failure against a big rock, but Shroud explains that Trial's effective tactic is making full use of his speed; attacking quickly enough to deal an impressive amount of damage by numbers even if each individual attack is minor, and use evasion to keep from being slaughtered.